1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communications and, in particular, wireless communications utilizing wireless Internet and/or wireless telephony.
2. Description of Related Art
Wireless Internet systems (Wi-Fi) are becoming more and more prevalent as transmit speeds increase and the cost of computers, equipment and service falls. Where wireless “hotspots” were previously confined to a singular office or building (e.g., Starbucks TM coffee shops), wireless clouds now cover much larger geographical areas. However, even with the relative proliferation of wireless Internet, it has repeatedly been shown that there is minimal substantial content to run in these wireless environments (e.g., for instance, the highly publicized recent Wi-Fi events in Paris, France where only a small subset of potential users actually took advantage of Paris's wireless public network due to a lack of useful content). The Paris event involved an experiment to turn the city into one huge Wi-Fi hot spot, making it what could be the first large wireless city in the world. In the experiment, a dozen Wi-Fi antennas were set up outside subway stations along a major north-south bus route, providing Internet access to anyone near them who has a laptop computer or personal desk assistant equipped to receive the signals. The access was at first free, but later required paid subscriptions.
Furthermore, the interaction between wireless Internet technology and that of other “popular” technology such as text messaging as is available over most wireless telephones lags behind the business opportunities for such interaction.
In order for customers to purchase wireless-enabled devices and take advantage of these wireless environments, customers need to have compelling content to run on those devices. Some companies such as Vindigo, Inc. (www.vindigo.com) and CitySearch (720619 Ontario Inc.—www.citysearch.com) are already providing very limited content. These and similar products target the largest cities in America and elsewhere, so many fertile markets are not supported, such as business areas, historic districts, or shopping malls. In addition, these “city specific” applications have very limited content and all content must fit into simplistic templates that typically provide only about one paragraph of information profiling each business and in some instance a non-standard rating of “quality” and/or “cost” is provided. These “city specific” applications typically provide approximately three Internet “pages” per business, generally consisting of a one paragraph profile, contact information, and directions to the venue.
Therefore, what is needed is a systematic method to provide content on a Wi-Fi system and make such content available and useful to the various platforms having Wi-Fi capability and to make use of technologies outside of the Wi-Fi cloud including “wired” Internet and wireless telephony.